SHARE

Massage message, don’t abandon core beliefs, GOP leaders say

While the Republican Party is talking about whether it should retool itself in the face of several losses after this month’s elections, don’t expect the Grand Old Party to turn its back on its core beliefs, state GOP leaders say.

That’s because it wasn’t the party’s conservative values that Americans rejected when the party failed to win the White House, lost seats in the U.S. House, didn’t win a majority in the U.S. Senate and lost its majority in the Colorado House.

No, it was a matter of not getting its message across to enough people, particularly minority voters, said Colorado Republican Party Chairman Ryan Call.

“We as a party do not need to abandon any of our core principles, but we do have to do a better job in communicating those principles in ways that connect with the citizens of Colorado and that address the issues that are important to them,” Call said. “Clearly, we need to make better inroads into the minority community in a way that really is sincere and that truly listens to the concerns that they have.”

Every party and political candidate who loses an election questions what went wrong and what they could have done better.

But for the Republicans, losing the presidential race against a candidate they felt was very vulnerable, and then by a landslide as far as the Electoral College vote was concerned, was particularly stinging.

Still others said it was because the party catered too much to extremist talk that even now is grabbing the headlines.

Over the past two weeks, petitions from all 50 states have been posted on a White House website calling for each to secede from the union. Many have received thousands of signatures, though not necessarily from people who live in those states.

On right-leaning blogs, including here in Mesa County, others are going even further by calling for armed revolution.

Grand Junction resident Jerry Hunsinger, a retired pilot and the husband of Mesa County Republican Party Secretary Phyllis Hunsinger, posted a lengthy message on the local GOP blog Reagangirl.com saying the nation is at a “tipping point.”

In the posting, Hunsinger claims the Democratic Party stole the election, but he doesn’t say how. Then he says the only answer is outright sedition, calling for the creation of a new republic, the boundaries of which primarily include western and southern states.

“A new republic begs to be formed,” Hunsinger writes. “These boundaries include all of our people. They think as we do. A more God-fearing, gun-toting, conservative, hard-working, patriotic and fiscally responsible bunch cannot be found anywhere else on this continent.”

On the same blog, Grand Junction resident Marjorie Haun posts similar missives, one of which offers a list of foods and medicines — and firearms — people should start stockpiling in preparation for the coming “storm,” which she said is only weeks away.

Call and other leading Republicans are quick to reject such talk, saying it’s not what people should be listening to right now.

“Talk of seceding from the union is absolutely ridiculous,” said state Rep. Mark Waller, a Colorado Springs Republican who will be the next minority leader in the Colorado House when the Legislature convenes in January. “At the end of the day regardless of who’s in control, we live in the best country in the world.”

Call said opinions uttered by such people as Haun and Hunsinger don’t reflect the view of state or national Republicans, adding that such talk is based more on an emotional reaction than a thoughtful one.

“That sort of talk has no place in an honest dialogue about how we move forward to make our communities, and our state, and our country a better place,” Call said. “America and our party has gone through elections where we have won and where we have been defeated, but America is still America.”

State Sen. Steve King cautioned everyone to step back. This is no time to try to determine a course of action right now, particularly while emotions are so high, the Grand Junction Republican said.

No one makes good decisions in such a state, he said.

“We all can understand that there’s a lot of angst out there,” King said. “We’ve been hearing about all of these issues during this campaign season, and nothing seems like its changing, in tone or direction on both sides.

“The problem that we have right now is we’re too close to the election,” he added. “Your emotions and your perceptions become skewed. Right now it still hurts, it still stings. We haven’t stepped back yet. When we do, we’ll see the direction that’s good for the Republican Party, but it’ll be one based on principles, not emotions.”

COMMENTS

Commenting is not available in this channel entry.

Page 1 of 1

By Steve Phillips - Monday, November 19, 2012

Thank God for those like Rep. Mark Waller who possess some common sense and true leadership skills! Sedition and threats of revolution in the coming weeks? What world do some people live in? Over an election no less. If this great country isn’t good enough it is a short plane ride to many others. I’ll buy the ticket.

By Claudette Konola - Monday, November 19, 2012

Kudos to Steve King for calling for people to take a deep breath before jumping into sedition and treason.

By Dennis Patton - Monday, November 19, 2012

The GOP just does not “get it” even yet with all the losses in this election. It is not the message that is failing, it is the “party” that is failing to allow us a chance to vote for real conservatives of our choice. They lead you to believe that you have a voice in the choosing of the candidates but it is well known that they pick them well ahead of time and the people are left with picking the lesser of two evils.

How did that work out for them with Jared Wright? When he didn’t agree to go along with the gambling bill (12-1280) last year they attempted to drop him like a hot cake and now there are rumors floating about an attempt at recalling him at the earliest possible time. The County Commissioners are still in the bag for the bill and are going to go ahead with the work at the fairgrounds until they get to the point of needing a “private partnership” to complete the deal (read that as completing the deal with private enterprise taking over after 12-1280 passes) so they need the area Representative to go along too. It wouldn’t look good if the local guy was against it after all.

Then we have the matter of the Western Slope Conservative Alliance and some members of the Mesa County GOP trying to make it look like the extremist tea party people are calling for sedition and the formation of a new republic. The WSCA Tea Party and GJResult Tea Party have not supported any such movement and have worked hard at trying to make changes by working with others to elect people who really represent conservative values and principals.

No matter how hard Ryan Call tries to distance the GOP from Mr. Hunsinger and Ms. Haun he cannot do it. Mr. Hunsinger is an insider in the Mesa County GOP and Ms. Haun is the head cheerleader for the GOP’s illegitimate tea party (a tea party that never was). If they are advocating any of the actions mentioned in Ashby’s article they are doing so with no connection to any real Tea Party and I sincerely hope with no support from the Mesa County GOP.

By Bob Arrington - Monday, November 19, 2012

“Step back” says King. A voice of moderation finally coming forth? Then the realization, “…but it’ll be one based on principles, not emotions.”
Pubs have been usurping principles by promoting the lies, hatred, bigotry and distortion to attack the President. While covering deliberate obstructionism of the House they controlled, a pub U.S. Senator openly declares, they will make him a one term President.
They supported the ridiculous birther, attacked Women’s choices, Hispanics and African American heritage people, disowned the healthcare act that they originally wrote and voted over 30 times to repeal it in the House. Power and control was the only guiding principle in this whole pub campaign that started with a slanderous electronic media attack before the President was elected the first time and has carried to this day. They selected an etch-a-sketch candidate for President that felt he could change positions or hide positions on a daily basis. So, now they want to go back to principles as opposed to the agitated emotional state they built and with the same leadership?

Well, the funny thing about principles, they form a measuring stick and they are harder to display without comparison. Unlike emotion where the loudest shouter gets attention, principles require thoughtful consensus, as opposed to misspelled signs and appellation costumes. Principles require truth and accepted proof they work, not warm and fuzzy comfort appeasing faith or hope. Denial of truth because of dogma is an antithesis to principles.

Yes, a step back is in order, but you can not step forward again without evaluating the things that put you on the wrong path in the first place. Two choices face you, a shortcut across unfamiliar terrain to find a better path or go back to the junction you made a wrong turn. The latter may mean you will still may go up a wrong path and the first may mean you have to get out of your comfort zone and think about what you doing and where you are heading. Then you won’t be electing, or even putting up for election, a poorly principled candidate as Jared Wright.

And finally a thought to tickle the mind:
It has been fun for 4 years to beat up on the phrase ‘politically correct’, but that is just a phrase to describe actions that do work because they appeal to more people than being snarky, and that, is the basis of politics. And as a little extra,‘massage the message, don’t abandon core beliefs’ says lie differently about the facts where you really want to do the same wrong things.

By John Wilkenson - Monday, November 19, 2012

“Politics” is nothing more or less than person or group A trying to persuade person or group B to obey the will/agenda of A. That explains why so many people of Bob Arrington’s ilk get so snarky while pretending to condemn snarkiness. Especially leftists, the primary practitioners of so-called “political correctness” get so much mileage out of the wannabe-clever practice (attributed to Hitler’s favorite political theorist, Carl Schmitt) of demonizing the “other” so as to dehumanize them in the arena of public opinion, thereby setting them up for political defeat and eventual physical destruction.
Nobody I know hates Obama for his black half. Leftists, of course, pretend otherwise to gain strategic political advantage. They are pathologically manipulative liars, period. Many people I know do despise Obama — for his openly Marxist philosophy and policies. Of course it’s much easier to fraudulently call someone “racist” than engage in an intellectually honest discussion of Economics 101 or defend self-evidently ignorant views, which might explain why so many leftist hide their illiteracy and illogic behind false altruism while calling their opponents “uncaring”, “greedy” “haters”. I consider that polemic tactic to be evil, and its practitioners reprobate nihilists.
Obama is self-evidently a divider, something the Bible says God hates. Obama got votes by peddling greed, envy, racial hatred and the notion of entitlement to “freebies” (things created by the labor of the “other” guy).
Ignoring for a moment the issue of rampant voter fraud, what the 2012 election clearly demonstrated is that the riders in America’s economy wagon now officially mathematically outnumber the pullers. That is an unsustainable social model, which justifiably causes many of the types of people demonized by leftists to worry that mass suffering and starvation will be required to change the culture back to an ethic of work instead of entitlement.
Arrington grammatically incoherently refers to “ridiculous birther”. I submit that when Obama’s own grandmother says she was present at Obama’s birth in Kenya, there is plenty of logically reasonable cause to suspect that OKenyan may very well be constitutionally ineligible to be President of the United States.
The main question at this point seems to me to be how much suffering and starvation will prove necessary to abandon our relatively recent unsustainable culture of unmerited entitlement, victimhood and sloth in favor of the older traditional sustainable culture of hard work and integrity. When politicians can get elected by speaking blunt truth, America will be on her way to recovery. As long as politicians can get elected by pandering to Arrington types and wannabe-cleverly demonizing political and economic realists, America will continue to decline.